The main reason why I never set a quit day is because it never came. So many sites suggest that you set a quit date. To me, that was a death sentence, the counting down the days until I quit. Why I came to this site is because they approached it differently. I went to at least 4 or so other sites to investigate what I was going to use for support since around my area there are no groups or sessions for smoking cessation. I was attracted because they use the behavior modification approach and it was smokers helping other smokers.
I've seen a lot of people failing lately or for that matter panicking over the thought of quitting. Let's address the failing part. I don't consider those failures. I look at them as stepping stones to get you closer to where you need to be. You see, in life, if we see ourselves repeating the same mistakes over and over again, what that is telling us is that we haven't learned from them the first time. The question of Why does this keep happening to me pops up. It may not be the exact same scenario is happening over and over again, but the underlying theme always remains the same.
What made you slip up all those other times? Let's take the labels out. What did you need that cigarette for? Why did you believe that was going to solve whatever was bothering you? Your toolbox is essentially in the beginning when you tailor your quit plan. What do you use smoking for? What times of the day are you most likely to smoke more than others? And more importantly, What are you going to do to separate from each of your triggers?
You can't make a blanket statement of well, when I'm triggered, I'm using a stress ball and use that for each and every trigger you have. You're not creating an association with, A, specific trigger, with B, action. Your brain is not separating those two or three or how many triggers you have specified. That's what I noticed when I quit and what helped me. I knew I had to basically reprogram myself into thinking and reacting differently. When I smoked, that's exactly what I did: When I'm triggered, I'm smoking for every single one...... see what I'm getting at?
When we were adolescents or even starting college for some, we started smoking for all kinds of things. Usually it was for acceptance, status, an overall boost to our morale or an imaginary buddy. Before too long we became hooked and didn't know how to stop effectively. That's really what it's all about, isn't it? We want to be successful. We have to decide within ourselves when we finally reach that crossroads and ask ourselves the question, do we really want this?
How cute is this?
